PC freezing and USB turns off

[slashragnarok]

Okay so, since last night I'm facing a problem with my PC.

CPU: i5 2500k
Mobo: ASUS P8Z68 V Pro
RAM: GSkill Ripjaws 4 GB x 2 1600 MHz
GPU: Zotac GTX 960 Amp! (2 months old)
USB keyboard mouse
PSU: Corsair TX850 V2
Windows 7 Ultimate Edition

No overclocks

Everything's working fine till I find that my USB devices have lost power. This includes my keyboard, mouse, USB audio card and XBox 360 controller. Sometimes these devices are totally turned off, i.e. lights off. Sometimes one or two devices have their LEDs on but they are not responding. Disconnecting and reconnecting devices turns their LEDs off.

Moreover, the video card sends signal to the monitor but the screen freezes when the above happens. One time the PC was being shutdown and Windows was installing updates. The PC froze mid update. The only solution is to hard reset the PC. This freeze may happen after 30 minutes, or even a minute after startup.

One last detail is there was lightning in my area last night.

Any ideas? Thanks

 

[DK_WD]

Hi [MENTION=113008]slashragnarok[/MENTION],

Based on your post, it may be the power issue. The PS might be not providing the enough output supply to the PC components or there might be more possibility that the power supply is short or the internal output wiring connection is loose. To overcome the problem, I’d suggest you to try the different power supply in the system.

Good Luck.

 

[harshilsharma63]

> Sounds to me like a short circuit issue on motherboard. Make sure you have earthing in your home.

> Try this - turn on your pc, leave it as it is, on desktop for some time and see if the issue occurs again. Update here one you do this.

 

[slashragnarok]

> Sounds to me like a short circuit issue on motherboard. Make sure you have earthing in your home.

> Try this - turn on your pc, leave it as it is, on desktop for some time and see if the issue occurs again. Update here one you do this.

Okay guys I tested RAM it was fine. Stress tested CPU and GPU. No problems. The freeze just happens randomly. I even reinstalled Windows. After reinstallation, the PC was fine for 5-6 hours. Then the same thing. Once it froze while I right clicked on desktop. Then it happened while it was idle and I was AFK. One time I was just switching from one window to another. My GPU is new. I have to pin point the issue, i.e. whether hardware or software before I replace anything.

Should I pull everything on mobo, remove dust and reseat everything?

Thanks.

- - - Updated - - -

Update: After reinstalling Windows 7, the problem persists but the freezes are few and far apart. What I've noticed is that the freeze occurs mostly on desktop when I'm clicking something, switching windows etc. and almost never when running stressful applications like Furmark, Prime95 or playing games.

- - - Updated again - - -

Okay now the freezes happens but I can play games for a couple of hours. For the first time it happened in game (The Witcher 3).

- - - ... and again - - -

So what I did today was, dismantled everything from my cabby. Pulled out everything, cleaned the dust, remounted CPU with thermal paste. Cleaned every slot, every component. Put everything back together again. Rehauled all power connections. Crossed my fingers and booted. First I got CPU fan error. Checked all the fan connections. Nothing was loose. Rebooted again aaaaaaaaand... no POST . Troubleshooting time. What I got was, DRAM led blink once, CPU led blink once and nothing. Pulled out GPU, reconnected HDMI cable to onboard HDMI port. Yaaaaaayy, system booted into Windows. But I was sure my GPU is fine as it's new and was working about 2 hours ago before I dismantled my PC. So I reconnected GPU and changed the connector powering it. System booted with GPU. This was completed at approximately 3:30 pm. Since then PC has been running smooth. Surfing the web, watching movies. No freeze. Played Witcher 3 which crashed a couple of times. Nothing unusual. I'm using NVIDIA for the first time and I have to say their drivers are crap. I mean come on, how can a game optimized for NVIDIA cards crash so many times and that too after 4 patches. So I still got my fingers crossed. Hopefully my issue has been resolved. I think I'll revert back to Old Windows installation as I think that was not at fault. Any way thanks all for reading.

- - - Updated - - -

Okay so it wasn't resolved. PC hung again. This time when I was restarting my system, it froze at the Shutting Down screen. I didn't even realise it's the same freeze till I saw that my mouse and keyboard lights were off. Though it could have been off normally during shutdown. When I hard restarted PC, I did not get any "Windows did not shutdown correctly" which I think implies that the freeze took place after all shutdown processes had been completed. Gonna test this for a while now and see if I get any more freezes during normal operation. Mobo could be the culprit. How do I test which is the culprit? I can't buy both a mobo and a PSU at this point.

 

[DK_WD]

Hi [MENTION=113008]slashragnarok[/MENTION],

Based on your experience, it might be a MOBO issue. To confirm the problem, I'd suggest you to try the same MOBO on a different computer and put under observation for at least 8 hours. If the problem still occurs in different PC, then its a MOBO issue, otherwise it's a PSU issue.

 

[slashragnarok]

Hi [MENTION=113008]slashragnarok[/MENTION],

Based on your experience, it might be a MOBO issue. To confirm the problem, I'd suggest you to try the same MOBO on a different computer and put under observation for at least 8 hours. If the problem still occurs in different PC, then its a MOBO issue, otherwise it's a PSU issue.

Since the Mobo IS the computer, do you suggest I put a new CPU, PSU, RAM and Hard Drive to test it out. If so, I'm afraid it is a tad unfeasible. Could any PC repair shop test the mobo for possible faults?

Also please keep in mind that my PC is working fully, even with demanding games and applications which stress the CPU, GPU and RAM to the fullest. I've run Prime95, Furmark, Memtest86+ and HDD Health test and hit no snags. The freeze happens randomly. Even when idle. So it isn't that it happens when the PC is doing a particular job.

Also I must say here that the frequency of freezing has drastically reduced to approximately one freeze between 3:00 PM and 11:00 PM after I took apart and reconnected everything.

Thanks.

 

[topgear]

Test the motherboard outside of the cabinet. Don't even use cabinets power button / front panel connectors.
Check the HDD for bad sectors.
Use onboard audio for now and mouse and KB only.
If possible try with another gpu though the PSu sounds solid but it also could be the source of all troubles. So if it's within warranty RMA it.
Finally USB chip / related capacitors of motherboard might have been damaged.

 

[slashragnarok]

Test the motherboard outside of the cabinet. Don't even use cabinets power button / front panel connectors.
Check the HDD for bad sectors.
Use onboard audio for now and mouse and KB only.
If possible try with another gpu though the PSu sounds solid but it also could be the source of all troubles. So if it's within warranty RMA it.
Finally USB chip / related capacitors of motherboard might have been damaged.

Thanks for the suggestion. My problem is a peculiar one and difficult to pin point taking into consideration that the PC may run well for over 6-7 hours before presenting the problem. Anyway I'll try what is suggested.

Also, I spoke to MD Computers today and they told me that LGA 1155 compatible mobos are almost obsolete. Only mobo that might be available is some Z77 based mobo from Gigabyte. That's a bummer as I know, my CPU is solid (3+ hours on Prime95 and OCCT with no issues). And yes I'll probably RMA my PSU. I'll have to check if it's still within warranty. But even then PSU is not too costly. Mobo CPU combo equivalent to what I have would cost me almost 30k today.

I should also point out that my back panel USB connectors (both 2.0 and 3.0) are working absolutely fine. So is the front panel USB i.e. extended from mid board. Only the additional USB 3 connectors extended from mid board is not functioning.

Thanks for your input.

- - - Updated - - -

Update:

So I started my PC after getting back from work at around 7:30 PM. PC was running smoothly. I tested HDD health with some tools which came back fine. At around 9 PM I thought I'll run Memtest86+ overnight. So I booted from USB stick and started the test. Oh and before starting I manually entered the voltage of my RAM as 1.5V which my RAM is designed for. Immediately after starting the test, within one second, an error was recorded. I kept running the test to see if any more errors are recorded. Meanwhile I went to the other PC at my home (one I'm typing this from) to search for info on Memtest errors. When I went back to my PC, the keyboard LED was switched off meaning there was no power on USB. My Bluetooth dongle and mouse were still lit but when I unplugged them and plugged them back, the LEDs did not go on. On screen, the test timer was frozen at around 34 mins. No new errors had been recorded. The test was frozen. However, in Windows, the whole screen was frozen but here the + sign after Memtest86 was still blinking. Having no other option I rebooted and restarted Memtest86+.

- - - Updated - - -

Update:

So after the freeze on Memtest I set Memtest to run overnight. Till I left home for work, it had completed 9 hours and 33 minutes of testing with zero errors. The PC had not frozen the entire night. So at 8 AM I exited Memtest, entered Windows and shutdown my PC. So today I'm gonna tear everything apart and test the mobo with RAM, mouse, keyboard only. I'll use the GPU though.

The problem does not seem to follow a particular pattern. I cannot even send the PC to any tech as the problem may not even present itself within a reasonable time frame. I may RMA the PSU though just to be safe. Is there any way I can independently test the PSU functionality?

 

[slashragnarok]

Okay my PC survived the whole of last evening which was mostly consumed by 207 Windows updates. Did some gaming and watched a couple of Youtube videos as well. Did not freeze even once. Still I'm on the lookout for any anomalies in performance. CPU and GPU temperatures are also doing fine. PC was on from 7:00 Pm in the evening to 11:00 PM at night. The PC was exposed to a good blend of mostly HDD activity, GPU stress and some idle time as well.

So this thread is now mostly gonna be a kind of log of observations till my problem is resolved beyond doubt or I find the culprit.

- - - Updated - - -

Test the motherboard outside of the cabinet. Don't even use cabinets power button / front panel connectors.
Check the HDD for bad sectors.
Use onboard audio for now and mouse and KB only.
If possible try with another gpu though the PSu sounds solid but it also could be the source of all troubles. So if it's within warranty RMA it.
Finally USB chip / related capacitors of motherboard might have been damaged.

It seems my USB 3.0 was not installed at all. I installed the drivers and they sprang back to life Also my PC hasn't given me any more problems since the last freeze. Still *fingers crossed* *touch wood*